He and Duper drove together to the arena in the morning for the game day skate. After the skate and a shower, they had special teams meetings—the power play team and the penalty kill team—with the coaching staff. Assistant coach Al Bosco reviewed the Wolves power play with them for their PK.
“The Wolves have one play,” he said. “And it sucks. The puck gets sent to the blue line, where the defense tries to set each other up for one-timers. They’ll put Polyakov on the right and Irving on the left, which means they can’t actually set each other up. They have to control the puck before attempting the shot, which gives us time to shut them down and take away the shooting lanes. Then they’ll try to pass it along the boards, but they don’t have the offensive power to do anything with it.”
Duncan nodded, listening. He recalled that exact play from the last time they’d played the Wolves. He knew what they had to do.
After the meeting, he ate lunch with the guys. The Aces provided them with awesome meals, which most of them took advantage of, though some of the married players went home for lunch to have more family time. Duncan had his usual steak and spaghetti with tomato sauce, followed by vanilla ice cream. Then he and Duper went home for a nap.
“So this book I’m reading has an article written by a sleep doctor,” Duper shared on the way home. “He says the game day nap is all wrong.”
Duncan flashed him a skeptical look. “Really?”
“Yeah. He says we should focus more on getting good sleep at night, and only use a nap as a recovery strategy.”
“Huh.”
“And he says a nap should only be thirty minutes.”
“I dunno. Been doing it for years.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
“Started when I was a rookie, rooming with Pauly on road trips. He napped every game day, so I got in the routine too.”
“Maybe I’ll try it one day—no nap.”
“But not today.”
Duper grinned. “Hell no.”
Duncan totally got that unwillingness to change from a routine.
He set his alarm and went to sleep thinking about Amber, how pretty she’d been yesterday even in baggy old clothes, looking all studious with her glasses on. He didn’t know she wore glasses. He liked them on her.
Duper left for the arena before he did. Although they lived together, Duper’s own game day routine was to get to the arena about two and a half hours before the game. Plus, he stayed later to visit with the kids from one of the hospitals, who were watching the game in the suite he sponsored, so the two of them took separate vehicles. Just before he left the condo, Duncan ate two pieces of multigrain toast with peanut butter. As he always did.
At the arena, he taped his sticks, had a massage, kicked a soccer ball around in the hall with some of the other guys for a while and listened to music, then did some stretching, which he disliked but knew was important. Being limber could prevent an injury, which nobody wanted. Pilker sat across the dressing room, also taping his sticks, earbuds in, listening to his own music. He wouldn’t talk to anyone—not a word—after two o’clock on game day. Duper was riding the bike to warm up.
At six o’clock they had another meeting, Coach fine-tuning some of the things they’d been working on and getting them all motivated. “Play to their weaknesses,” he shouted. “Grind this shit out of them. You guys know what you gotta do.”
Then it was time to put his gear on. He did this in the same order every game—right shin pad, right sock, left shin pad, left sock, pants, right skate, left skate, shoulder pads, right elbow pad, left elbow pad, then the jersey. He tugged it down over his gear.
“Jesus Christ, who took my baby powder?” Hughie yelled.
Duncan lifted his eyebrows and looked around. Hughie always put baby powder on the blade of his stick, his own personal ritual. Nobody would mess with one of the guy’s rituals. Would they?
Hughie moved some socks. “Oh, here it is.”
Whew.
They tramped down the tunnel in their skates to the ice for the warm-up. Music blasted, tonight’s playlist courtesy of Benny. They all got to take a turn putting together playlists for the dressing room and the warm-up. Right now, Skrillex. Awesome.
On the ice, before he even looked for Amber, he took his first shot at the net, always aiming for the left goalpost. Tonight he rang it neatly off the post and he grinned. That was a good sign.
Then he turned to look for Amber and Lovey, knowing exactly where their seats were. They weren’t sitting with the wives and girlfriends, but near that section. Lovey’s bright red-gold hair was easily identifiable, and she was wearing her black Aces jersey, but his eyes were drawn to Amber’s shiny gold waves. He caught Amber’s eye and lifted a glove, then resumed skating.
Awareness of her there watching the game gave him an extra adrenaline rush, and he shot the puck at Stoykers in the net with blistering force. Whoa. He needed to control that energy. Yeah, he wanted to impress her, but he had to stay in control. Focus on the game.
Now Ace Hood blasted “Tear Da Roof Off,” accompanied by the crack of pucks on sticks. He paused on the center line as an old friend skated up. “Hey, Louey.”